


Liability

by aliaoftwoworlds



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Author is Bitter, Civil War Team Iron Man, Lots of Angst, M/M, Not Steve Friendly, followed eventually by fluff, other Avengers and canon characters briefly present, soulmate rejection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-09 04:12:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14708847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliaoftwoworlds/pseuds/aliaoftwoworlds
Summary: Soulmates didn’t mean shit unless you convinced yourself of it. The same mark on two people’s skin didn’t make them compatible. Tony might have once been ready to talk himself into believing it, but as usual, experience taught him never to trust that things would work out.It was all a matter of perspective. But maybe, if fate really did exist, it had a twisted sense of what was right. After all, in rejecting the idea that someone could magically be “meant” for him, he ended up happier than he could have thought.





	Liability

**Author's Note:**

> Just reading some random soulmate stuff recently and got inspired. While I can totally get into sappy soulmate stories where finding each other means everything is basically perfect, I’m also a huge fan of more realistic, pessimistic interpretations, where maybe two people are supposedly destined to be together, but it’s just not going to happen or end well. I love the idea of rejecting your “soulmate” and finding someone who’s actually meant for you. And of course, Steve and Tony are the poster children for ill-fated soulmates. Ever since AoU and CW I really can’t stand to see them as a happy pairing, but I can definitely get on board with them as exes, particularly if Tony moves on happily while Steve still wants him back, which does good for my salty soul. And of course, we could always use more Tony/Rhodey in the fandom.
> 
> Side note: I love Lorde and while I usually don’t attribute music to fictional characters (never been able to get into the whole “playlist for this character/couple/etc” thing or anything similar), basically her entire Melodrama album is perfect for post-CW broken up Steve/Tony. I stole the title for this from my favorite song from the album (and one that’s very Tony if I do say so myself).

It wasn’t as though Tony Stark really had much of a chance, not when it came to soulmates and buying into all the propaganda. Sure, he heard the stories growing up, he was born with a mark like the vast majority of the population, he knew about the concept and when he was young, it seemed like a great thought.

But reality caught up to him pretty quickly, and like with other things, he had to grow up fast. He was a child of the media, and an unfortunately lucky shot of what should have been a private moment when he was just ten years old, combined with the annoyingly prominent back-of-the-shoulder placement of his mark, meant that the entire world knew exactly what his looked like.

So, at just ten, there was already talk of setting him up with someone, of turning the incident to their advantage. He was the heir to the Stark fortune and company, already a certified genius guaranteed to carry on and improve on his father’s work. The rest of his life would be spent in the middle of various business and political battles, and here was a hard lesson in the fact that in that world, even the most personal details should be seen only as potential tools to use to one’s advantage. He learned it fast, and he learned it well. They didn’t end up setting up some sort of false relationship or arranged marriage, but by the time that decision was made, Tony had accepted its inevitability.

He was just fourteen the first time he encountered someone willing to fake the mark to be with him. A girl four years older than him, beautiful and cunning and willing to give him the kind of attention he craved after a childhood spent around wealthy, busy parents who, for all he was sure that they—or Maria, at least, Howard he was honestly unsure about—loved him, often couldn’t be bothered to spend time with him. His soulmate, his destined match, and she was wonderful to him.

So he dated Jackie for three months, during which she received plenty of media attention and access to his wealth. Howard didn’t have anything to say about her except a warning to Tony not to do anything stupid with her. Tony could tell that his mother quietly disapproved of Jackie, but what was he supposed to do? They were _soulmates_. 

When the artist friend who’d been keeping up the carefully inked mark on her skin unexpectedly left town for a week, and the pattern on her arm smudged itself after a shower, the only thing Tony could feel proud of was the fact that he managed not to cry until after she’d packed up her stuff and left with little more than a shrug and a chagrined expression for having been found out. He locked himself in his room and cried for more than an hour after that. He’d lost his virginity to her, been thinking he was genuinely in love and had found his life partner, and apparently to her, he’d been nothing but a game that was fun while it lasted. His father’s lack of surprise and stern lecture on wasting time with her that night tore at his heart, but he was long out of tears by then.

He left for MIT less than two months later. Pitiful as it was, getting trashed at a frat party and nearly taken advantage of by several girls in their twenties, being dragged home by his new roommate, confessing the entire story with Jackie and crying some more, then throwing up on said roommate turned out to be the christening of their friendship. “Jim” became “Rhodey” after that night. Though he’d never let Tony forget the spectacular barfing part of the incident, he also never mentioned the sniveling depression, and he was just about the only person on the planet Tony trusted not to judge him for his feelings regarding the whole soulmate thing.

Over his years at MIT, he met several more people—mostly women, but one or two men too—with fake versions of his soulmark. They showed various levels of commitment; one of them was a real, permanent tattoo. He soon developed a system of avoidance: when people approached the topic of soulmates in conversation in any way, whether it seemed like they were leading up to revealing a fake matching mark or not, he would go off on a long, winding speech about the science behind soulmates and how little sense it made that any patch of dermal discoloration present at birth could really tell if two people were compatible once they developed into mature adults shaped by their experiences. He would go on at length about not believing in soulmates, and if the pessimism didn’t drive them off, the rapid science talk would. 

It’s not like it was untrue. By their second year there, Tony was more than done with the whole idea. People would fake it to get close to him, to use him like Jackie had. After a lot of thought on the subject, he came to the conclusion that the entire thing was a giant placebo effect. After all, if Jackie’s secret had never been revealed, he’d have really spent his life with her—at least, assuming she never got bored and abandoned him—happily ignorant and convinced that he really did love her. That must be what other couples had, soulmates who’d found each other and told heartwarming, nauseatingly sappy stories about how incredible it felt to find the person you were destined to be with. They realized they had matching marks and their brains, conditioned by the soulmate propaganda everyone was exposed to practically from birth, convinced them that this particular pairing was special and significant.

Rhodey met Carrie in the winter of their second year. They dated for two weeks before they figured out that they had matching marks. It didn’t really change anything for them, but they were certainly excited to realize it. Tony still believed in his placebo effect theory, but he was quieter about it, and never said anything of the sort around them. He was happy for Rhodey, and even if it was just a trick of the mind, what difference did it make? Rhodey was happy, he was in love with a smart, wonderful woman, they were a perfect couple either way.

At least, until Carrie cheated on him. With two different guys. This time it was Rhodey’s turn to get drunk and sit on the floor next to Tony, espousing everything wrong with soulmates and the world in general and life on this crappy planet full of crappy people. His half-slurred rant about how soulmates were a lie and nothing about it really mattered wasn’t very different from Tony’s practiced speech to potential suitors, but Rhodey still apologized for it the next day, once the hangover had subsided. “You’ve still got someone out there, Tony, someone who actually matches you for real. I know it seems unlikely that you’ll find them, but you shouldn’t give up on it. Don’t reject them before you even meet them. Just because some people’s soulmates don’t work out doesn’t mean yours won’t.”

Tony nodded along and pretended he agreed, but he knew better than that. The world wasn’t kind to him, and he wasn’t meant to have a soulmate. Not a good one. If he ever did find the person who was born with his matching mark, he was sure by then that they’d turn out like Carrie. 

The whole incident with her had incensed him, and only further cemented his disbelief in the entire system. Beyond how generally awful it was to cheat at all, who would cheat on their _soulmate_ , someone they had such a seemingly perfect relationship with? 

So maybe a small part of Tony still clung to the idea of a perfect, destined match, and was hurt at the thought that someone lucky enough to find theirs would betray it like that, throw away something that most people never even got to have. Another part of him was angry simply because who would cheat on _Rhodey?_ He was the best person Tony knew by far, and anyone on the damn planet would be lucky to have him as a boyfriend.

It wasn’t until months after his parents died, when the hurt wasn’t quite so raw anymore, that he ever looked back on their relationship in conjunction with the soulmate crap. Perhaps part of his early disillusionment with the idea had come from them. He honestly had no idea if they had matching marks or not—he’d seen his mother’s once or twice, dress ridden up or pulled to the side as she adjusted her young son on her lap and exposing the small mark near her knee, but he’d never even come close to seeing Howard’s. For all he knew, his father had been one of those rare people born without a mark. He’d certainly never mentioned anything about it to Tony.

If his parents were soulmates, they were a perfect example of his thoughts on the subject. They definitely didn’t act like the sappy, love-struck soulmates of cutesy news stories and cheesy movies. For what little he saw of them actually together, they seemed to tolerate each other more than there was any hint of _love_ between them. Of course, as he grew up in the spotlight himself, he recognized that public appearances were hardly the place to judge what his parents felt for each other. They needed to put on a face for the media, and they did. He just didn’t have much else to go on; Maria spent more time with him than Howard, but both of them were around him alone far more than all three of them were ever together.

By the end of his time at MIT, he’d long since concluded that the world of love was mostly lies and deception, that there was little chance he’d ever find his real soulmate and if he did, in all likelihood they’d be an even worse person than Tony himself, and that neither of those things should stop him from enjoying what he could about love and sex. With his parents dead and his future full of nothing but empty media attention and people clamoring to use him as a pawn in one of their endless games, he began developing a completely separate public personality to hide behind, in order to protect the few personal things that the world didn’t already know.

He dated around. He drank and partied and threw money at anything he felt like having. He established himself in the general public’s eyes as a playboy and a troublemaker, and meanwhile, in private, he dedicated himself entirely to the one thing that actually made him happy: engineering. He created JARVIS and watched him grow, proud in a way that he thought might be something like having a child. He developed incredible new technological ideas, expanded on ones that were already in use. He created a lab space for himself that was a futurist’s wet dream, a place where he retreated almost entirely, to be himself freely, only emerging for public appearances where he acted out, caused a scene, and went home with a beautiful woman or two, maybe a handsome man. Keeping the media and the public distracted from his abandonment of the idea of a soulmate, his avoidance of anything resembling commitment.

He knew where his future was going, of course. It wasn’t exactly a disappointment to suddenly be given the reins of the company, but it did limit his creative spirit. At first, he tried to expand a bit beyond weapons design, work on some of the things he’d come up with in the time between graduation and taking over. But Obie highly discouraged it, and he trusted Obie. He knew more about the company, how to make it better. Despite his public reputation, Tony did in fact take his responsibilities very seriously, and he cared about both his company and the people who worked for it. He wanted to do what was best for Stark Industries.

So he saved the occasional miracle technology for himself and his lab, limiting the expansion of those ideas mostly to tech that would help him in his own development. When he wanted to contribute to another field, he did it through donations and partnerships. He became a ruthless businessman and a genius in the field of weapon design, and he really did enjoy coming up with new ideas, seeing them implemented, and watching his company improve with them. He stopped questioning and fully adopted his father’s and Obie’s views on what they did and why, turning them into a mantra that he really believed in. No matter the protests by people who didn’t understand how the real world worked, they were helping their country and working toward a more peaceful world.

And he couldn’t complain that the position brought him back to Rhodey again. They’d drifted apart after MIT, Rhodey focusing on his military career and Tony on his company, Rhodey becoming a respectable, responsible soldier while Tony became known for his wild parties and sleeping around. Tony might have constantly felt a low level of guilt over what a disappointment he’d turned out to be in relation to his friend, but he usually squashed that down. He was successful, powerful, rich, famous. Maybe he didn’t command the kind of respect that Rhodey did as a soldier, but he had the respect of the world for his genius, his philanthropy, and his success with his company. And Rhodey rarely went on about it, only occasionally mentioned something about what more Tony could do or be.

Afghanistan was horrible, no question about it. If he could have given up everything the experience gave him to spare Yinsen’s life, he’d have done it. But he couldn’t deny that he came out of it a better person. Shutting down weapons production was the right thing to do, and as an older man, with more experience and more options, he knew how to do it while still doing right by his employees and the world. Obie’s disapproval and Rhodey’s chilly disregard made him waver, twisted a knife in him, but they couldn’t dissuade him completely. Being in the suit he’d built to protect people was freeing, and he felt a sense of purpose he hadn’t even realized he’d been lacking for more than a decade.

Becoming known as Iron Man had its ups and downs, naturally. He always considered the good worth more than the bad, but realizing that this new personal responsibility brought him into the dangerous territory of personal feelings and letting worry over the people he loved affect him was a pretty big downside. He knew all along that hiding that he was dying from Pepper and Rhodey was not going to end well, but he just didn’t know how to deal with it. How to tell Rhodey that it was partly his influence that convinced Tony that dying like that was worth it for the changes he’d made to his life. How to tell Pepper that the thing that frightened him most about dying was leaving behind someone who’d made him start to think about real relationships and love again for the first time since rejecting the idea of soulmates in his teens.

It worked out in the end, at least for the most part. Rhodey actually helped him out by taking off with the suit he’d made for him, and fighting alongside him against Vanko, hearing his apology for everything, made Tony breathe a sigh of relief. When it was all over, he was ready to man up and talk to Pepper about actual feelings. He’d nearly kissed her on that rooftop, but something had held him back, some vague, unformed thought about soulmates and marks and real romance that wasn’t based on the relief of not dying.

The conversation was short; as soon as he mentioned the marks, Pepper turned wistful and talked at length about dreaming of meeting her soulmate since she was a little girl and deciding to wait for him, wherever he was. She finished with a more realistic assessment of her current responsibilities as a CEO and how she’d likely be too busy for a relationship anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal that she was unlikely to ever meet him. That was enough for Tony to drop the subject and the idea of being with her. She was dedicated to the idea of finding her soulmate, and it clearly wasn’t Tony. He’d never seen her mark, but if she hadn’t seen his on the internet, she’d seen it in person. It wasn’t exactly hidden and she’d seen him with his shirt off too many times to count.

He eventually concluded that it worked out for the better. They were a good team, good friends, but he didn’t think they’d work well as a couple. They were too different in some fundamental ways, and too similar in others. She would always be frustrated with his endless antics, his continual need to put himself in danger, and his dedication to being Iron Man. She was too good, too pure a person to understand his deep connection to the form of penance that being a superhero was to him. While he certainly loved the thrilling aspects, those he could give up. The idea of making up for his past mistakes by protecting people with everything he had, that he couldn’t give up.

So he settled back, gave up yet again on the idea of any kind of soulmate or real romantic relationship, and dedicated himself to Stark Industries and to Iron Man. He was really, genuinely happy. Every once in a while he’d look at his mark in the mirror and wonder, but it just didn’t hold the same draw that it used to. He was in his 40s and he’d found a fulfilling place in life. The one woman he might trust enough to have a real romantic relationship with wasn’t available for that, and his desire for that life had settled, anyway. Life moved on. 

The arrival of aliens and the formation of the Avengers gave him an all new focus, though not necessarily a good one. He’d never regret having flown that nuke into the portal—it needed to be done and he’d have happily died there knowing he’d saved everyone, though living was good too—but the sudden anxiety attacks and nightmares weren’t exactly welcome. Still, the entire incident at least proved that they had a team that would come together when needed.

Seeing Rogers there had set something off in him, something that he could admit to himself (though no one else) was not good. The man his father had practically idolized, compared him to on more than one occasion—with Tony always coming out on the bottom—and generally seemed to devote more time and attention to than his own son. The personification of righteousness and goodness, and he hated Tony from the moment they met. The sharp spark of disappointment was covered with his usual snarky attitude and false bravado, but it definitely stung.

The team went their separate ways after Thor and Loki departed, though Banner agreed to stay with Tony for a while and work in his labs, and all of them exchanged contact info with the promise of coming back together if needed, or just to work together some more in the future. Rogers shook his hand with a friendly smile and a farewell that was practically an apology, but despite his false smile in return and jovial “good luck,” Tony still had a sour taste in his mouth. It was clear that Rogers’s opinion of him had only changed thanks to his little trip through the wormhole, and he doubted it would last if they came together again. Rogers obviously found him distasteful, and Tony didn’t need conditional friendship that was based only on appreciation of maneuvers that risked his life.

It was three weeks after the invasion that he found himself going through the thorough personnel files for the other Avengers that he’d hacked out of SHIELD’s databases, the ones that contained all the little details Coulson’s original files had left out. He read through descriptions of some of Romanoff and Barton’s hairier missions with interest and mild disgust. He mostly ignored Banner’s file—SHIELD didn’t know much more about Banner than Tony himself did, and Tony considered it a bit of an invasion, anyway. Maybe it was hypocritical to be going through the spies’ files without that trepidation, but the spies were _spies_ , and Banner he actually trusted. Romanoff had already deceived her way into his life, stabbed him in the neck, and gotten herself access to him, his networks, and his feelings that she could have used against him in any number of nefarious ways. He felt it was his duty, in the interest of self-protection, to even the playing field when it came to spies, should they meet up again.

He didn’t have much interest in Rogers’s file. Rogers hadn’t been awake for long before the invasion, and Tony was well aware of the old tales of Captain America, having heard plenty about him from his father. He skimmed the file with little interest, until one item under basic info caught his eye.

He was alone, so if he really did let out the hysterical laugh he wasn’t sure if he imagined, no one but JARVIS was around to hear it. Down under miscellaneous physical information, a picture of the back of the Captain’s thigh, and the perfect match to the mark on Tony’s shoulder. Even a note beneath it with Tony’s initials; everyone knew what his mark looked like, obviously SHIELD would have included it as a point of interest.

He was still processing when the thoughts started piling on, building up before his mind could even get to them. Howard. His father was part of the project, he must have known what Rogers’s mark looked like. What did he feel when, decades after the soldier was lost, the mark showed up again on his own son?

The question was almost immediately eclipsed by a surge of anger. His father could have told him. Could have prevented the heartbreak and probably permanent emotional scars Jackie had left on him. Could have stopped him from spending years wondering if his soulmate was out there somewhere, perhaps knowing that the famous Tony Stark was meant for them, but thinking they’d never be able to convince him it was real, since he was so reluctant to believe it. 

The anger faded quickly. If Howard had told him, would he even have believed it? Would knowing as a child or a teenager have done even more emotional damage to Tony, knowing that his soulmate was long dead? He couldn’t even imagine what Howard had thought about the whole thing. His father had never shown any signs of overt homophobia, but there was a chance he was disappointed to know from day one that his son was meant to be with another man. He’d known Rogers personally, that must have been weird. And when everything with Jackie happened, maybe Howard had thought the way Tony later had, that Tony was happy and in love and what good would it do to ruin that, if she was going to be good to him? Or maybe it was just that his father, already pathologically incapable of discussing feelings in any manner with his son, had no idea how to even begin to approach the subject. God, sometimes Tony loathed how similar he was to his father.

He called Rhodey first. They hadn’t spoken in nearly a week anyway, Rhodey was away on duty but due to be back soon, and it was time for a check in. His plan was to talk normally, see how Rhodey was doing, then work what he’d just found out into the conversation later. Instead, the second Rhodey answered the phone, he immediately blurted out, “Rogers is my soulmate.”

There was a long pause on the other end, then, “I’m sorry.”

There was the hysterical laugh again, but Rhodey wouldn’t judge him for it. “He hates me,” Tony said. As soon as Rhodey had gotten back after the battle in New York, he’d sat down and Tony had told him everything, from the details of the fight to how dark and suffocating it had been in the wormhole to his stupid, hurt feelings on the Helicarrier when the great Captain America had accused him of being a selfish, worthless human being.

“At least it’s not some serial killer or a terrorist,” Rhodey said, reminding Tony of their long-ago conversations and Tony’s confession that if he ever found his soulmate, he was sure it would be someone awful, a criminal or a white supremacist or something. 

Tony groaned and put his face in his hands. “This is worse. I think I’d rather have the serial killer. At least then I could arrest them dramatically and it would be an inspiring story about the courage to defy destiny for the sake of doing what’s right. Now I just look like the asshole that Captain Perfect can’t stand but somehow got stuck with.”

Rhodey chuckled on the other end and Tony glared at the screen despite it not being a video call. “‘The courage to defy destiny?’ How long did you spend coming up with that one?”

“Shut up.” The teasing did pull Tony a little farther onto the “amused” side of this clusterfuck. He decided to put it all aside. This didn’t really change anything. Tony had long since abandoned the childish notion that soulmates were automatically perfectly compatible people who were guaranteed a happy relationship. He did wonder, briefly, whether Rogers knew about it before they’d met, but put that out of his mind, too. He really didn’t care.

But a week later, he got a call from Rogers, asking to meet up. Rogers said he was back in the city and wanted to talk more about the Avengers, but Tony could sense the slightly anxious, awkward undertone and knew exactly what this was about.

They met at Stark Tower, Tony inviting him in with mostly false enthusiasm and launching quickly into a nonstop rant as he showed him around the living and training spaces he’d designed for the Avengers, should they want a place to call home base. Rogers at least feigned interest, didn’t interrupt or look annoyed with Tony’s incessant chatter, and looked genuinely delighted by some of what Tony showed him. Finally, the tour ended and they sat down in a living area for what was sure to be an awkward conversation.

“So what can I do for you, Rogers?”

“Call me Steve, please,” Rogers—Steve—said immediately, looking at Tony with that stupidly handsome face and annoyingly sincere expression and okay, maybe Tony was a little more bothered by this whole thing than he wanted to admit.

“Then it’s Tony to you, Steve. It’s only fair.” _Why_ did that come out like a flirt? Why did he even say that? He should be keeping this professional, making it easier for Steve to kindly tell him that there was no way in hell he’d ever want anything to do with Tony romantically. Tony would make some quip about not wanting to date a cougar and maybe a sincere comment about keeping this out of the media, and they would go their separate ways and never speak of this again.

He got a brighter smile in return, some of the tension sliding off that face. “Okay, Tony.” Steve paused for a moment, absentmindedly rubbing his palms on his jeans. “Listen, Tony, there’s something I need to tell you. I think you—”

“I know,” Tony blurted out, unable to help himself. He couldn’t watch Steve awkwardly try to find words any longer. When Steve just gave him a wide-eyed stare, he shrugged, trying not to look as uncomfortable as he felt. “Hacked your SHIELD file last week, they’ve got it in there. When did you find out?”

Steve blinked, clearly processing that. “Yesterday. I saw a picture in one of those gossip magazines.” At Tony’s amused look, he reddened and added, “The headline on the front mentioned you. I just wanted to see what it said.”

“Well, I hope someone’s given you the Sparknotes version of modern media, because I can pretty much guarantee most of whatever it said wasn’t true. I think my feelings might be hurt if you’ve come here to accuse me of being the father of your child.” As usual, Tony hid his discomfort behind jokes and snark. 

Steve frowned like he was trying to figure out what Tony had said. “No,” he said finally, “I came here to ask you to go out with me sometime.” 

He said it with a straight face, right to the point, but Tony still took a moment to just stare. That wasn’t what he’d been expecting. Well, no one said Tony couldn’t say what he was thinking too. He grimaced. “Do you really think that’s a good idea? We don’t exactly have a great track record of getting along.” He gestured between the two of them for emphasis.

Steve shook his head, leaning forward with an earnest look. “Look, I’m sorry for what happened on the Helicarrier, what I said. I judged you before I should have. It was a stressful situation, and I was feeling out of place. I was wrong. That won’t happen again.”

Tony sighed. He didn’t really want to be discussing this—his preferred method of dealing with emotions was to avoid them until they went away or he died—but it seemed like Rogers was going to stick around as long as it took to have this conversation. “I appreciate it, Cap—Steve—I really do. I was stressed out too, and I’m sure I wouldn’t have said some of what I did otherwise. But I think it was pretty clear from the get-go that we were going to butt heads. This,” he gestured to his own shoulder, where he knew Steve knew his mark was, “doesn’t change any of that. If you wouldn’t have wanted to go out with me before yesterday, that shouldn’t change now.”

That pleading look should be weaponized. “But we’re _soulmates_ , Tony, please. We have to _try_.”

“’Soulmates’ is a state of mind, not a mark on the skin,” Tony said, but Steve just continued blasting him with that look. He sighed again. “No offense, Steve, but do you even swing that way? Have you ever wanted to jump another guy’s bones, or are you just convincing yourself you do because of this?”

That earned him a slightly irritated look. “Homosexuality was invented before the 1940s, you know.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

It was Steve’s turn to sigh. “Yes, I’ve been attracted to other men before, Tony. But this isn’t about sex, okay?” The tone told Tony exactly what Steve still thought of him, and just emphasized why this was a terrible idea. “I’d like to get to know you better, and I’d want to do it anyway. If we’re going to work together, be a team, we need to know each other personally. I’m not asking you to marry me, Tony. I’m just asking for a date.”

Tony really didn’t have much to say to that. He still thought this was a monumentally bad idea. He thought that Steve didn’t like him, and he wasn’t sure he liked Steve either, and that wasn’t likely to change just because they had matching marks, or because they forced a few awkward dates and some small talk. But Steve was right about working together as a team. 

Tony was already having nightmares about what he’d seen on the other side of that portal. He knew that the Avengers were going to be needed eventually, for something a hell of a lot bigger than the invasion they’d just barely managed to repel. They were going to have to not only form a more cohesive team, but also begin larger-scale preparations, planetary defense, inspire other teams and enhanced people to come out of the woodwork, and set a precedent for defense and protocols for exactly that kind of situation.

So he said yes, against all his better instincts. Both those that told him that he and Steve weren’t a good match, and those that rebelled on principle against the idea of going out with someone simply because they were his “soulmate.” He ignored all of that, and he went on a date with Steve Rogers.

They had to be discreet, that was something Steve had, thankfully, readily agreed to. He did _not_ need the media all over this. The first date was exactly what Tony had expected, some forced, awkward small talk over coffee that he didn’t even like, followed by conversation so uncomfortable it made him long for the small talk. Steve reminisced about his childhood, got onto a depressing train of thought about everything he’d loved that was now gone, and then switched the topic to Howard, which was even worse. Tony didn’t hate his father by any means, but the last thing he wanted was to discuss the complicated relationship he’d had with the man with the very idol who’d caused so much of his childhood resentment and validation issues. He also didn’t want to admit to Steve that it seemed Steve had more substantial, meaningful memories of Howard than his own son did.

But Steve was persistent. Despite that disaster of a first “date,” Steve asked him out again. As the other Avengers slowly trickled back into their lives and they formed somewhat of a routine with Stark Tower as their base, Steve started hanging around Tony more than ever before. He made him breakfast and brought sandwiches down to the lab for him. He asked about what Tony was working on and seemed to take a genuine interest in his answers, even when he barely understood a word of what Tony said. He sat in the lab and drew, sometimes scenes from memory, often Tony himself.

They went out a few more times, they patched each other up after battles the Avengers were involved in. They argued and sniped, but ended up apologizing. Steve kissed him a month after their first date, right after a battle where Tony had ended up wearing only half his armor and nearly getting shot several times in his unarmored half. Steve just strode up to him, still in his filthy uniform, and kissed him and while Tony might not have wanted to admit it out loud, it was amazing. They started showing signs of physical affection around the Tower. Eventually they ended up in bed together, and there was another thing that was more amazing than Tony cared to admit. It made him feel feelings he didn’t like.

Because Tony Stark never did anything by halves. He threw himself into everything he got involved in with full force, no matter the damage it ended up doing to him. His rational brain still knew this wasn’t a good idea. They argued way too much, more than a functional couple should, and their arguments often devolved into the personal. They always apologized, but whatever Steve said never quite soothed the hurt he’d caused, though Tony never said anything about it, assuming it was just his own insecurities, telling himself that Steve had apologized and that should be enough. There were fundamental aspects of their personalities that didn’t fit right together. And every time something went wrong, a small but insistent part of Tony reminded him that Steve was doing all of this because he thought he had to, because of some stupid mark on his skin.

It was beyond just the personal aspects, too. When everything had gone down with Killian and the Mandarin, Tony and Rhodey and Pepper alone had been involved in it. He’d tried to call Steve once, but Steve hadn’t picked up. He’d been busy, he said, and Tony tried not to be hurt at that excuse. He understood, and they’d handled it, it turned out fine. When Steve held him close afterwards, talked about what thinking Tony was dead had done to him, and then made pretty spectacular love to him, Tony had considered him forgiven completely.

But then there was the mess in D.C. and its aftermath. Tony was both upset and angry after that, because after all his disappointment and stern lectures to Tony about not calling his soulmate for help when he was in danger, Steve didn’t even bother trying to contact him. Steve cited HYDRA’s deep infiltration into SHIELD and not knowing who to trust, and part of Tony was deeply, fundamentally hurt by the obvious implication that Steve felt he couldn’t trust him. Not only that, but Tony had no heads up about their idiotic info dump plan, when even a single phone call could have potentially saved hundreds of agents who were killed when their identities were leaked. Tony was left scrambling to help the few trustworthy remnants of SHIELD save the people they could, instead of taking action before they were even in danger. All because his supposed soulmate couldn’t even trust him. 

His rational brain knew this wasn’t going to end well. But his rational brain didn’t control everything, and the mushy, annoying, emotional part of his brain was possibly, maybe, definitely in love with Steve, and there was nothing he could do about that except try to push forward and make this work. 

He didn’t share much of what he was thinking or feeling about the whole thing. By some miracle, they’d managed to keep their relationship entirely out of the media and the public’s hands. The only people who knew were the rest of the team, Fury and Hill, Pepper, and Rhodey. Pepper was busy running a company, and she thought they were a cute couple. She was happy for him and he didn’t want to tell her the truth. He’d never told her what had happened on the Helicarrier the first day they’d met.

Rhodey knew better. He was familiar with Tony’s guilt complex, his self-recrimination, his thoughts on soulmates, and his history with Steve. But he also knew better than to try to pry Tony from the relationship. He knew very well that Tony would put everything he had into it, try as hard as he could to make it work, even if his efforts caused more harm than good. He was quietly supportive, and Tony knew he would be willing to listen without judgment to whatever Tony was feeling, but he just didn’t feel right dumping all of that on his best friend.

Then the Ultron disaster. The witch in his mind, more nightmares to add on top of the ones he already struggled with. After it was all over, Tony was paranoid, frightened of himself and unsure what had happened, how everything had gone so wrong. He approached Steve with the idea to distance himself from the team, become long-range tech support only. Secretly hoping that Steve would talk him out of it, tell him how important he was to the team, or even notice how shaky and terrified he was and offer some sort of comfort. When Steve just agreed with a grim expression and told Tony that it was for the best, Tony left without another word, more heartbroken than ever.

Steve came by to visit him a few times. Still trying, halfheartedly, to make it work, to show some interest in being with his soulmate. But it was obvious the effort was cursory. It was clear that Steve was starting to become disillusioned with it all too. He kissed Tony when he came over, but he didn’t listen to him the way he used to. When he asked about Tony’s work, it was always with an undercurrent of suspicion in his voice. Every conversation they had somehow ended with a mention of Bucky, and it was obvious who Steve would rather be with.

It all went downhill from there. The Accords had been in the works for a long time, with Tony working to tailor them to the Avengers’ needs, a part of him feeling all the while like he was wasting his time and effort trying to improve a document for a team that didn’t even want anything to do with him. Ross getting involved only made everything worse, compounded by the lack of backup from any of the Avengers. He was beginning to wonder if any of them even bothered to keep up with the news, if they even knew about the Accords at all. It wasn’t his job to keep them up to date on the real world, but they tended to act like it was. 

The ultimatum he was forced to present to the others was just the icing on top of the shit cake. Evidently they _didn’t_ know about the Accords, and it seemed they somehow blamed him for being the messenger, he supposed because he was working with them, trying to do something good and take responsibility instead of gallivanting around causing untold damage and ignoring it all. Rogers—and he was Rogers again, not Steve, if Tony was honest with himself they hadn’t been anything more than barely tolerant acquaintances for a long time—made some self-serving speech about his being the safest hands and not being able to stay out of a fight. Well, if Tony’s time trying to force a relationship with him taught him anything, it was that Steve Rogers’s first instinct in every situation was to fight.

Still, it just piled more hurt on top of everything else, this ultimate proof that not one of his supposed teammates trusted him, not really. They were happy to have him as their benefactor, to take his money and tech and time, but not his advice or his input. Rogers included; he may have been dating Tony on the side, but he’d never truly treated him like a full member of the team. Tony had given these people everything he had and they couldn’t even be bothered to throw him scraps in return.

He was desperate in Germany. He still cared for these people, still knew that he needed to keep the team together, that what was coming was so much more important than any document or petty squabble. He recruited the Parker kid out of desperation, hating himself a little for involving a teenager, but knowing that Parker’s abilities would be useful if things got out of hand, and that he could keep his distance and still help.

Not that it worked out that way, of course. Because all Tony ever did was involve people he cared about in things they shouldn’t have been tangled up in, and get them hurt in the process. He’d be sending the poor kid home covered in bruises. Meanwhile, he’d be at his best friend’s bedside, wondering if he would ever walk again, feeling the last of the good feelings he ever had about the Avengers dissipate in the wake of Rhodey being injured.

Everything he’d ever had with Steve had been nothing but a lie and a pathetic attempt to force something that was never going to happen. What was he even fighting for? To keep together a bunch of volatile children, hoping that five or six petty, squabbling humans could fend off an alien army? To have a relationship with a self-righteous, stubborn, dangerously ignorant man who thought the solution to every problem was to punch it until it went away? None of that mattered in the face of Rhodey being injured. Rhodey was the one person he could actually count on, the one person who’d never betrayed him and never would. Maybe he was as selfish as Steve had often accused him of being, because with Rhodey critically injured, nothing else mattered. The world could burn for all he cared.

Well, that wasn’t quite true. He was still dedicated to doing what was right, and what was right in this case was to bring Rogers and Barnes in peacefully, before any more innocents got hurt. He went to the Raft, forced out an apology he shouldn’t have had to give to the criminals who hurled insults at him like he was the one who’d put them there instead of their own reckless behavior, their disregard for innocent lives. He got a location from Wilson, promised to go alone, and kept to that promise only because he had no one else to go with him. The team was over. He would help Rogers and Barnes with this one threat, then he’d arrest them both, expose the Raft and Ross’s criminal activity, make sure every one of the former Avengers got a fair trial, and wash his hands of them. They weren’t going to save the world. He’d build a new team from the ground up if he had to.

So he went to Siberia alone, to face the worst day of his life in every sense. Barnes was bad enough. The look on Rogers’s face when he admitted that he’d known about this, known while he was kissing Tony, while he was fucking him, while he was berating him for keeping secrets and hovering over his shoulder like every move Tony made might rain destruction down on the world, was worse.

Not that he’d believed in any kind of fairy tale in decades, but his soulmate bringing the shield his father had made down on his chest, violently destroying the thing that used to be his heart, his life, and crushing his chest underneath it with the force of the blow into his suit, broke something in him. He used the last few breaths he could manage to tell Rogers that he didn’t deserve that shield, and he watched him drop it through vision blurred with tears of pain and heartbreak and anger.

He was awake and stuck in a dead suit for six more hours, watching the bunker slowly getting darker around him, replaying the video of his parents’ brutal murder in his mind over and over. He breathed as well as he could through broken ribs and a broken suit compressing his chest. He tried not to let the terror of the thought that HYDRA agents could show up any time and do whatever they wanted with him, injured and stuck in his useless suit, send him into a panic attack that very well might kill him. His fingers went painful with cold, then numb. His feet did the same. He felt his thought processes slowing. Not that he was thinking much beyond the anger and betrayal anyway.

He was long since unconscious when, fourteen hours after FRIDAY had lost contact with the suit in Siberia, Vision arrived at the bunker to bring him home. He woke up slowly, still shivering despite the warming blankets, with Rhodey in the bed beside his. Rhodey as his roommate, feeling sick and heartbroken—it was a bitter throwback to their early days.

Rhodey was taking the injury very well. He told Tony that he didn’t regret it, that the fight needed to be fought and he’d do it again. Tony couldn’t have expressed well enough the relief of listening to him and feeling that he could trust what Rhodey said, that he didn’t have to dissect every word for its hidden meaning, for what Tony had done wrong to warrant his disappointment. He still blamed himself for Rhodey’s injury, probably always would, but at least he was confident Rhodey didn’t blame him, didn’t regret fighting with him. He didn’t feel like he needed to justify the fight, explain why he’d believed in the Accords.

Instead, he told Rhodey in a flat, emotionless voice about everything he’d kept from him for the last few years. Everything he’d felt about Rogers and their failed relationship. Every time he’d warred in his own head between the rational recognition that they weren’t a healthy couple and the irrational feeling of love he’d developed for Rogers. He told him about the other Avengers, how hard he’d tried to make them comfortable and happy, and how his efforts to become friends with them had mostly been met with little more than suspicion and derision.

Finally, he told him about Siberia, every detail. When he was done, he sat for a full minute of silence before Rhodey beckoned him over to his bed. Tony went carefully, still bruised and beaten and broken in every sense, but he got there. The minute he was in Rhodey’s arms, he started crying, which did nothing good for his shattered ribs. The pain just made it harder to breathe, but he couldn’t stop. Rhodey tried to soothe him through it, but Tony’s body was fighting him, and he ended up passing out again, waking up back in his own bed. 

Rhodey talked to him for a long time without expecting anything except that Tony listened. He talked about his own life. He told Tony everything he’d felt about his and Rogers’s relationship, every time he’d come close to saying something and hadn’t, and every moment where he’d thought maybe things really would work out. He told Tony about all the good they’d done as Iron Man and War Machine, without needing the Avengers there. He talked about everything good he saw in Tony, without ever mentioning any of the others. 

It wouldn’t fix everything overnight, but Rhodey’s faith in him was the kind of foundation he needed to rebuild himself. He promised himself in that moment that he would never shed another tear for Rogers or any of the former Avengers. He hugged Rhodey as tightly as his broken body would allow, and he started drawing up plans for braces for Rhodey. He stayed there, he listened to the doctors, and he healed. And the moment he was released, he got to work.

It wasn’t hard to figure out where his former teammates were staying. He sent a very polite message to King T’Challa, thanking him pointedly for his _concern_ regarding Tony’s life-threatening injuries and expressing his sincere desire that T’Challa continue to honor his father’s wishes in whatever way he felt was most honorable. He had no way of knowing T’Challa’s response—whatever his former teammates might have thought, Tony was not too proud to admit that there were probably geniuses beyond his level in Wakanda, not to mention access to resources he could only dream of, and trying to hack their systems might very well be a pointless endeavor—but the message was very clear, and he had a feeling T’Challa would be keeping the ex-Avengers out of his way and out of trouble from then on, to the best of his capabilities.

He then organized a quiet infiltration into the systems of the Raft and Ross’s personal files, and a massive release of all that information as soon as it was gathered and decoded. Ross didn’t go to prison himself—the rich and powerful rarely did—but he lost his position and his credibility. Tony focused through the entire incident on keeping the Accords out of the line of fire.

Ross’s influences on the Accords were closely examined and reworked as necessary, but the document was still going strong. The Rogue Avengers’ rebellion against them had only strengthened the world’s desire for them, for accountability for superheroes, and it had turned the world against the Rogues. The trail of destruction they left from their little temper tantrum over being told to take responsibility for themselves was very compelling evidence. Coupled with Tony’s distance from the Avengers in the last few years—and their steady decline in public favor only _after_ Tony had essentially left the team—and Tony taking over the cleanup for a mess he hadn’t caused, including reparations and personal visits to the families of civilians Rogers and Barnes had injured in Bucharest, and the world was pretty firmly on Tony’s side.

It became clear very quickly that despite being a minor, Peter wasn’t going to stop being Spiderman. He was going to get himself into danger no matter what, and the best thing that Tony could do for him was to give him safer, better equipment and the kind of knowledge he needed, and be there as backup if necessary. When he tentatively proposed this to Rhodey, the warm approval he met made a welcome change to the usual reception to his ideas over the last few years, and only further highlighted the difference between a real friend and the Avengers.

He took away the restraints he had on FRIDAY, added due to his own paranoia after Ultron and also at Rogers’s insistence. He apologized for ever crippling her, restricting her, and she told him that she understood, that he’d been in a difficult situation and done what he’d thought was right. He might have gotten a little teary-eyed at that. Not just that she was right, but that she was already making judgements and decisions like that. Even with his restraints, she’d been learning and growing. Between her and Peter, he was feeling more like a parent every day, and for once, the thought didn’t terrify him.

Rhodey was up and walking with his braces within a month. Tony put a modified version of them out for general release and helped a hell of a lot of injured veterans and civilians alike. Stark Industries stock continued to rise alongside public opinion of its owner. Tony and Rhodey, meanwhile, got to work on the defensive front. They formed the basis for new superhero teams, highly regulated and responsible teams built on trust and integrated with the Accords instead of depending on covert organizations and lies. Vision began training with them again in between going out on his own, learning about the world through experience instead of spending his days cooped up with a volatile team and a willing Nazi volunteer who messed with people’s minds for fun. Spiderman came to train with them sometimes. They worked with Strange and some of his magic users. They greeted new heroes coming into the light. They made everything better.

Four months after Siberia, he finally took the letter and phone Rogers had sent him out from their place at the back of a drawer. He burned the letter, grinding the ashes into the floor with his heel. He didn’t need the self-serving “apology,” didn’t need the shitty justifications or ridiculous hypocrisy. He kept the phone only because he knew what was on the horizon, and knew that when the inevitable came, there would be no keeping Rogers out of the fight. It would be remiss of him not to at least try to aim the man in the right direction when that time came.

The bitter memory of the Avengers became nothing but a distant lesson learned in Tony’s mind. He no longer hurt when he thought of any of them, even Rogers. He hoped T’Challa was having fun dealing with them. No doubt the King hadn’t meant to host them for over six months, but with Tony pushing everything forward after their “Civil War” and doing absolutely nothing to mitigate the world’s demands for justice, there was nowhere else for them to go. And if T’Challa threw them to the wolves now, it wouldn’t be too hard for people to figure out where they’d been pitched from. Tony really didn’t feel bad for him. He’d made the choice to take them in after they’d become criminals, after they’d killed innocent people. 

Seven months after Siberia, Tony found himself in the lab, back to back with Rhodey while they tinkered with their respective suits—while Tony did all of the building and coding and most of the maintenance, Rhodey was an engineer and a genius himself and liked to poke around—and thinking about Rogers and soulmates and intimate friendships. What he’d had with Rhodey for decades was better than anything he’d ever had with Rogers, which really just proved the theory he’d developed as a teenager about soulmates being nothing more or less than what you made of them. “Destiny” could kiss his ass. But that train of thought brought him to wonder a bit more about Rhodey, the friend who’d been with him through practically everything, who was loyal and fiercely protective and who Tony definitely loved more than anyone else in his life. So what, exactly, was the difference between that and the kind of relationship soulmates were supposed to have?

“Hey, Rhodey?” he found himself asking.

“Hm?” Rhodey made a questioning noise, dropped the screwdriver he’d been holding between his teeth, and half turned to Tony to show he was listening.

“Would you kiss me?”

He was expecting confusion or some kind of a joke in return, but what he got was an agreeable hum and “I thought you’d never ask.”

“Oh. Wait, what?” but Rhodey had already turned to him completely and was taking his face in his hands and pressing their lips together and—oh. 

He’d felt a spark of something kissing Rogers, partly some damaged part of his childhood belief in soulmates desperate to believe that it was special, and part just his own desire for a man who, at the time, attracted him both physically and emotionally. But that had nothing on kissing Rhodey. Rhodey was _right_ , in all the ways he hadn’t realized Rogers wasn’t. Ways like trust and mutual respect.

It was surprisingly simple to progress from there. They didn’t need to go on awkward dates. They already knew each other better than anyone else could. Tony worried a bit that trying to sleep with each other would be weird, but it really wasn’t—after all, who better to talk casually about sex with than a best friend? He hadn’t thought at the time that he’d ever actually use the information, but as it turned out, he’d learned many of Rhodey’s preferences long ago through snippets of conversation and tipsy confessions and heartfelt emotional talks. And Rhodey certainly seemed to be an expert on him.

Two months into their relationship, he finally stopped comparing it all to what he’d had with Rogers, and instead just basked in how incredibly happy he was. He was in a state he’d have called unachievable just a year ago. Their new superhero teams were working out, his company was doing well, he genuinely felt he was doing all he could for planetary defense and planning for the future. Sharing his bed with Rhodey kept him asleep far longer than used to be possible thanks to his nightmares and anxiety. He was mentoring Peter, and felt truly proud of how the kid was progressing in both his hero work and his regular life. Peter had accidentally called him “dad” three times in the past two months and Tony secretly loved the feeling it gave him.

The phone rang on a Friday evening. Tony was alone in the room, and it took him a moment to place the sound. He seriously considered not answering it. There’d been nothing on any of their alert systems, and he highly doubted that Rogers would somehow be the first to know about impending doom that needed dealing with. This was most likely a personal call, and Tony spent a minute honestly debating whether he cared enough to answer it. 

Eventually, plain morbid curiosity got the better of him. Maybe just a pinch of bitter pettiness, too. He knew very well Rogers wasn’t doing well. Even if he was happily cuddled up with his brainwashed assassin buddy and T’Challa was treating them like royalty, it had to be hurting him to be away from “home” and in exile for being a criminal, with the world still wanting his head. Maybe Tony should feel bad for liking that thought, but he really didn’t.

“Far as I know, the world isn’t ending,” was how he answered the call, “so this must mean you just wanted to make me listen to you talk. Too bad, too, I was having a good day.”

There was a moment of silence on the other end, then “Tony,” breathed like some twisted prayer.

“That is who you sent this insulting brick of a phone to. What do you want?” He really didn’t have time for this. Whatever temporary insanity had caused him to pick up the phone was rapidly dissipating.

“I just—I wanted to talk, Tony. You obviously got my letter.” He paused, but when Tony didn’t respond, he added quietly, “you never called.”

“Why would I?” It was a genuine question.

Rogers sounded hurt, like the bastard had any ground to stand on here. “After everything that happened, Tony, I’d have thought you wanted to work things out. We’re still soulmates.”

Tony laughed incredulously. “That ship sailed long ago, Rogers. And aren’t you hooked up with your best buddy Barnes over there? It was pretty obvious you wanted him.”

A frustrated sigh. “Bucky’s not—it doesn’t matter. You’re still meant for me, Tony. We need to work this out, give it another chance. We’re supposed to be together.”

Ah, so Barnes wasn’t interested, then. The thought filled Tony with a petty glee that he was only a tiny bit ashamed of. “That’s a pretty big bucket of bullshit, Rogers. We’re not meant to be, and it’s not happening. Is that really why you called me? To ask me to come crawling back to you? I mean, what could possibly have possessed you to think I would?”

“Tony—” Rogers started, but the disappointed, condescending tone wasn’t something Tony responded well to, and he was angry now.

“No, shut up,” he demanded, and amazingly, Rogers did just that. “I don’t need or want you. I didn’t need the selfish load of crap you sent me in that letter, just like I didn’t need this phone call. The only good thing that came out of our ‘relationship,’ if you could even call it that, was the appreciation I have now for my new one.”

He heard the choked sound from Rogers at that. “Yes, I’m in a new relationship, a good one, with someone who loves and respects me and appreciates me for more than just my money or a mark on my skin. He’s better in every conceivable way than you, and just in case you’re still not getting the point, let me make it nice and clear. You and I aren’t soulmates. We never were. We were never even friends. We might have matching marks, but that doesn’t mean anything. If there really _is_ such a thing as a soulmate, I found mine, and it sure as hell isn’t you.”

Tony took a deep breath and continued before Rogers could interrupt. He didn’t need to hear his voice ever again. “I’m going back to my life now, the good life I’ve built without any of you backstabbing, lying traitors dragging me down. This is the only free phone call you get, and make no mistake, it’s not out of sentimentality. I just don’t want to have to deal with the paperwork right now. But try to contact me again and I’ll happily let the German, Romanian, and Nigerian authorities know exactly where you are. So don’t call me again. If the world is ending, T’Challa has my number.” 

Foregoing a goodbye, he snapped the phone shut, turned it off, and dropped it into the trash, feeling the finality of it, like he’d freed himself from a weight he hadn’t realized he was still carrying. 

When Rhodey came home that night, he immediately noticed the change in Tony, who greeted him with a more enthusiastic kiss than usual. This caused Peter and Harley, who were spending their current break at the Tower for science-related mischief, to groan in tandem and look away, full of teen embarrassment. “What are you so happy about?” Rhodey asked, eyes twinkling.

Tony linked their arms and leaned into Rhodey’s side. “Nothing specific,” he said, “just did some spring cleaning.”

Rhodey raised an eyebrow. “It’s February. You’re a little early.”

Tony grinned. “Yeah, well, I didn’t do it last year, so technically I’m a lot late. But I finally got rid of some trash that was laying around, taking up space for no good reason. It’s just good to see it go.”

He had a feeling, from the barely-there tightening of Rhodey’s arm around his, that Rhodey knew what he was talking about. Just another reason to love him. “That’s always a good thing,” Rhodey said, and Tony thought he could detect a hint of a concerned question in there.

He smiled wider to reassure him and leaned in. “What do you say we take advantage of my good mood and go _really_ embarrass the kids?”

Really, he said it mostly for the noises of outrage from the boys, but the wild laughter Rhodey broke down into wasn’t anything to complain about, either. And if they ended up following through anyway, well, it was just a perfect ending to the day.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it. My birthday was yesterday and I wrote this during my study breaks instead of working on the stories I should be working on, oops. But at least now my brain might shut up about Tony/Rhodey stuff for a while and let me focus on my other fics. I will be back to my regularly scheduled non-shippy bitter stuff and Electric Veins updates soon!


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